This invention relates to a device for cleaning the contact-type information transducing heads used by a computer-type device for reading and writing stored information. More particularly, the invention relates to a cleaning disc used to clean the magnetic heads on a floppy disc drive.
The need for providing a device which is capable of cleaning magnetic head has long been recognized. In the case of a floppy disc system, drive heads have been cleaned through the use of a cleaning surface covered disc. The cleaning disc is inserted into the drive and as the head attempts to read the contents of the disc, it gets cleaned as it rubs against the cleaning material. Since there is no magnetic information stored on the cleaning disc for the head to find, the cleaning operation is halted as the drive head returns an error signal to the processing unit of the system. In this sort of cleaning method, the disc would tend to rub against the cleaning material in about the same position each time the disc is used for cleaning as the drive head unsuccessfully looks for its initial operating instructions on the disc.
The use of cleaning discs can be improved by typing a program into the computer terminal each time the cleaning disc is used. The program can be written to specify a position for the head to go to on the disc. This is a cumbersome way of getting the drive head to contact the cleaning material in different spots for each cleaning operation. It would be difficult to keep track of the locations on the cleaning disc which have been used. One would not know when a location has been exhausted of its cleaning effectiveness through repeated usage.